Does Freezing Your Credit Affect Your Score?

A Credit freeze has steadily emerged as one of the most popular methods of preventing identity theft in the recent past. Freezes limit the availability of your credit files and thus prevent unauthorized individuals from establishing new credit in your name. But could freezing your credit be detrimental to your credit scores? Here’s what you need to know.

Credit Freeze: What is It?

A credit freeze locks down your credit files and credit scores at three major credit reporting agencies – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. This helps to ensure that no other lender or any other person will be able to access your reports to extend your credit accounts. You can place a freeze on your credit for free and, when you wish to apply for a new line of credit, you can remove a temporary or permanent freeze for free. Freezes protect consumers from opening new loans or credit card accounts in case their information is stolen but will not protect against the misuse of existing accounts.

Is putting a freeze on credit bad for your credit score?

The quick response to this is no; freezing your credit reports to prevent access does not affect your credit score whatsoever. A credit freeze does not affect whatsoever on your credit score, according to Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, FICO, and VantageScore. Your scores will remain the same as the previous time they were computed even as long as your freeze lasts.

Though a new credit freeze by itself does not affect your ratings, any acts you conduct, while you are credit frozen, could later on lower your scores. For example, should you be seeking auto finance, you may have to unfreeze your credit using one or more of the reporting agencies. Should you be authorized, this can result in a rigorous credit check and the opening of a new account; these could either raise or lower your ratings.

Why Credit Freezes Do Not Affect Your Credit Scores?

Credit freezes do not harm the scores because the principal credit reference agencies only consider the data on your credit reports. They do not take into consideration whether reports are frozen or not. The actual data in frozen reports remains the same, including.

Account payment history
Balances owed
Credit age and mix of the portfolio
New accounts or recent inquiries

These aspects form the core of what defines numerical scores. A newly created frozen credit file is the same file that it was before it was frozen, with the only change being the external accessibility. Therefore, the mathematical computations in arriving at scores are not altered.

There is one scenario where credit scoring won’t work and that is if your reports are frozen with all the bureaus at one time. Major bureau data is required for creating updated scores in models. However, freezing with only Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion should not block new scores from being computed using available data.

Protections for Military Members

There are also additional provisions for members of the Armed Forces when they decide to freeze their credit. The Fair Credit Reporting Act states that credit bureaus must exclude from the scoring process any credit actions taken because of military business when members’ files are frozen. This keeps penalties on military personnel, who place a freeze on their credit before deployment or relocating to a distant country.

Is It Possible to Increase Your Credit Scores by Freezing Them?

Interestingly, freezing your credit reports can help increase your credit scores over time in some instances as it freezes access to your credit reports. How? By blocking identity thieves from obtaining new credit in your name at the same time you're rebuilding credit legitimately.

If you have late payments or collections accounts on your credit history from ID theft and place freezes, you may be able to raise your scores more quickly over the next few years as negative items are deleted from reports. No new fraudulent accounts can be created to offset what you are doing to rebuild your credit with positive payment records.
Potential thieves are all but barred from increasing unwanted activity on your credit, allowing you to consciously, methodically work on gradually raising your scores – paying bills on time, repaying credit card balances, avoiding inquiries that stem from opening unnecessary accounts, and so on. Your scores depend on consistently positive behavior.

Thus, while credit freezes alone work effectively, they are helpful when combined with other intelligent financial strategies.

Pausing Credit Reports Containing Minors

It is also important to note that many parents decide to freeze their minor children’s credit files to prevent child identity theft. The Social Security number of a child can be used to apply for credit cards and other accounts that affect the child’s credit rating before he or she Turns 18 years old. This type of fraud can be stopped by freezing. Fortunately, the big three credit reporting agencies have made it possible for parents to freeze their children’s credit reports at any time for free to be used in stopping the hackers. As children grow up, parents can always lift the freezes when the need arises depending on the growth and development of the children.

In Summation

While freezing your credit reports prevents credit information from being reported, it does not alter the information itself. Therefore, credit freezes do not impact the score because they do not cause an actual change in the scores given by the credit reporting agencies. However, be cautious when lifting temporary suspensions for loan and credit applications as the new accounts or inquiries may change your scores up or down even if you have frozen them before. Credit freezes should be thought of as just one of many wise decisions that consumers can take to guard against identity theft and maintain credit health in the future. It is also helpful to check credit scores at fixed intervals to enable one to track any actions that may be occurring in the background.

Ready to boost your credit score? Call +1 888-804-0104 now for the best credit repair services near you! Our expert team is here to help you achieve financial freedom and improve your credit. Don't wait—get started today!